


Lost | Smoke

by foxinschlox



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 05:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12952695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxinschlox/pseuds/foxinschlox
Summary: a MikoTotsu Week 2017 fic ♔ Suoh Mikoto and Totsuka Tatara have never once known where they were going or why.





	Lost | Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> For Ped, who I would be lost without.

____゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ･*･ﾟ゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ____  
  
Totsuka’s heart slammed back and forth against the cage of his chest with every sprint forward. His worn out sneakers scuffed the asphalt as he rounded another street corner, just missing the path of an oncoming car. These schoolyard bullies had grown persistent, and he kept hearing their taunting voices not far behind. So he ran until he couldn’t hear them anymore. He ran until his skinny frame shook with exhaustion and he collapsed to his knees behind a line of shrubs.  
  
These shrubs were unfamiliar. This neighborhood was far from his own.  
  
“That was close,” he said to himself, examining the large tear they’d made grabbing onto the back of his shirt. He winced feeling through to the dark bruises they’d left from kicking him down. A few places he touched came back bloody. The cuts and scrapes stung, and one or two of his bones felt suspiciously like they were fractured. At least he was out of sight. Those guys must have gotten bored.  
  
Wind shivered through the bushes. It had grown so cold, and Totsuka had forgotten his coat somewhere. Nothing new. Though he doubted there would be room in the budget for a new one.  
  
‘ _Maybe I should go back? Ah, I don’t recognize any of these streets, so maybe that’s out of the question,’_ he thought.  
  
So he wandered around, clutching at his arms to try shielding himself from the wind. Going street by street wouldn’t give him any clues, and there were no convenience stores in sight to ask anyone for directions.  
  
‘ _I’ll just have to keep looking, that’s all,’_  he thought.  
  
Totsuka lifted his head then. He smelled something carried on the wind. It was smoke. It watered his eyes, getting a lungful. But when it curled up in his chest it warmed him somehow. He took another deep breath and followed the scent to the railing which overlooked the winding street lower down the hill.  
     
“My old man wants me to visit for the holiday. You got any plans?”  
  
“Hm. Nah.”  
  
Totsuka blinked, recognizing the voices before he spotted the two boys walking below.  
  
“Wanna’ come with? I mean, my houseful’ve siblings can be a bit much, but we’ve got the room and it’s a good time. Good food, and all that.”   
  
Suoh thought about it, but didn’t answer. He just took another drag and sunk lower into the hood of his coat. He wouldn’t know how to act around an upper-crust family like Izumo’s anyhow.  
  
“Suit yourself.”  
  
Totsuka felt the urge to run down the railed steps and chase after them. But the sharp pain in his ribs wanted him to turn around and find a way home. Stuck in between, Totsuka ended up following on the street that climbed the hill just above them at a pained, slow distance — unable to decide what to do. He’d followed after King and his friend plenty of times before, only to be shooed away.  
  
It’s dangerous, don’t you get it by now?  
  
Totsuka never let their warnings sink in for long. The pain stinging all over his body was trying to make him think about it this time. His chest was begging him to leave them alone with every breath of cold air.   
But there was always a certain warmth that drew him closer. A magnetic pull.  
  
The pair below came to a fork in the road and it was time for Kusanagi to part ways to his uncle’s place.   
  
“See ya’ after break,” he called, “try not to have too much fun without me.”  
  
 Suoh nodded in the usual serious way. From where he watched Totsuka expected him to set off in his own direction. But as the moments passed he found Suoh standing in the same place at the fork after Kusanagi disappeared. Just smoking and staring off.   
  
Totsuka searched his expression from a distance. He thought it looked sort of hurt to be left alone without his friend; maybe he was just projecting. Totsuka felt a pang in his chest, deeper than his bruises.   
    
 _You’re lost without him. You don’t have anyplace else to go,  
_ a voice told Totsuka from the confines of his heart. One that visited him, not often, but usually deep in the middle of the night when sleep couldn’t find him.  
  
 _I can go home.  
_ Totsuka tried to formulate a reply. To make sense of the unpleasant things he wasn’t used to feeling.  
  
 _You have a home?  
_  
 _Do I?  
_  
 _You couldn’t hope to belong anywhere. You are a forgotten, cold hearted child, who won’t amount to anything.  
_  
The thought only made Totsuka concentrate on King even harder. Suoh’s cigarette had burnt out and met its end crushed beneath his shoe.  
  
 _You couldn’t. Unless,  
_ The inner voice faded, mistful, the closer he came to King. Still feeling unwell, Totsuka held onto the railing as he limped the steps down the hill, and closer.  
  
“King could feel just the same way,” he said under his breath.  
  
Suoh must have heard him climbing down from behind, because before he could step any closer he shot out an open palm, signaling him to stop in his tracks.  
  
Totsuka obeyed, and paused at a healthy distance in the street. He couldn’t keep the stupid smile from his face despite the ache in his ribs.  
  
“I’m lost!” his voice rang out, foolish. It wasn’t like he ever thought of what to say before he said it.  
  
Suoh’s expression screwed up. The kid looked like hell had run him over again. And a concoction of rage and annoyance and confusion began bubbling in up in his center again. And fuck if he could ever figure out what to do with it. It bore a striking resemblance to the feeling when he’d come across that group of kids tormenting a kitten at the playground. But not quite the same. Because this kitten had big, stupid brown eyes that were constantly searching for something lodged deep within Suoh himself. Something he’d rather not unearth. You pull it out, you bleed more — that’s just common sense. He turned around to find those eyes so often these days he’d memorized them. Totsuka wouldn’t grow up to have claws or the street sense that kitten would when it became a cat. He never seemed to learn from past mistakes. And it bothered Suoh most all the time, even when he was alone, to think about.  
  
He wanted so much to go back to thinking about nothing at all, ever. But the brat was lost, and shivering.  
  
No one was watching. Suoh took off his coat and threw it at his head.  
  
“Go home the way you came. Don’t let ‘em steal that one too.”  
  
“Oh, they didn’t steal my coat. I forgot it somewhere again. But I won’t lose yours! I know! I’ll bring it back to you tomorrow.”  
  
Suoh took the right side of the fork and went on his way, just to make an escape.   
  
“Are you going to be ok in just your sweater?”  
  
Suoh seemed to prickle as the kid’s voice piped up again. It was even closer this time.  
  
“King, are you going back to your house?”  
  
“No.”  
  
 _You couldn’t hope to belong anywhere,  
_ Suoh felt something lodged in his heart say.  
 _Unless,  
_  
“Then where?”  
  
“Nowhere.”  
  
“Can I come?”  
  
Nothing hurt so much after that. Or perhaps he forgot that it did.  
  
  
 _ _ _ _゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ･*･ﾟ゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ  
____  
  
Years passed.  
Time wound its red string tight around the two of them. So that one day when they went on walks to nowhere they grew so close it seemed the King and Vassal were attached at the hip.  
  
Under the streetlights, far deeper into the heart of the city, in the middle of the night, Totsuka would never ask where they were going or why anymore when King got it in his head to take off on a prowl. The only thing to do was prowl along. He slipped his hand into Suoh’s coat pocket, and found himself almost too warm for the layers he hadn’t forgotten to wear this time. This world was different from the one where he’d gotten lost in that strange neighborhood as a child; the one where Suoh recalled giving up on pushing him away. The fork in the road had shifted them into a new one. This world was densely populated; all flashing lights, violence, and color. It was filled with disorienting attachments and emotions that plagued the Red King’s every waking moment.   
It was full of something akin to happiness.   
  
“Why don’t we ever get anything like these around our place?” Totsuka ogled the modern art statues posted up in a tiny city park square. They were just colored metal looped and bent this way and that into viscous looking shapes.  
  
“I ought to make something like this, something modern, experimental of my own for outside the bar.”  
  
“They let people put up whatever shit they want to these days, huh,” Suoh squinted at the weird fixtures. They tilted their heads side to side together, neither of them getting the point.  
  
“Now now, you should try to have an open mind, King. Isn’t that the nice thing about getting lost? You never know what you’ll find.”  
  
They had been walking for hours. It was the way Suoh liked it, when he was particularly restless.  
  
“But it’s getting pretty late.”  
  
Suoh grunted in agreement.  
  
“Let’s get a hotel room,” a wise little quirk of a smile replaced the naive one of Totsuka’s youth.   
  
Though it seemed to hold the same power over the Red King.  
  
“You  _that_  tired?” he teased the kid into following him off again.  
  
“Not especially,” Totsuka hummed, tucking himself up under King’s arm,  
“Not at all actually.”  
  
It was just as well to keep losing their way together.  
  
  
 _ _ _ _゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ･*･ﾟ゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ･*･゜ﾟ____


End file.
